"My windows were not smashed, but I first thought that my house is being dismantled, then I thought it was a UFO, and my eventual thought was an earthquake," Bukreeva Olga wrote after witnessing the incident.

"I have as much heart stopped. This very moment," Marilana wrote on Twitter. (Translated from Russian)

One of the witnesses was able to capture the loud noise of explosion in this video:

Another video posted by a Youtube user shows a video recorded by a CCTV camera at a work place. The employees who are seen standing near a window are captured being blown away by the noise of explosion. Check out the video here:

However, the question of whether it was a single meteorite, or meteor shower, has yet to be fully resolved.

"There was no meteor shower over the Urals, as it was reported earlier - there was only one meteorite. It burned as it was passing through the lower atmosphere," an official told the Interfax news agency, which had earlier reported that it was a meteor shower.

Witnesses posted several videos showing the aftermath by the cosmic bang. See one of the videos, uploaded by Misclifex, here:

Meanwhile there are reports that the meteorite was shot down by the Russian air defences.

"The meteorite was intercepted by an air defense unit at the Urzhumka settlement near Chelyabinsk," TV-Novosti reported via RT.com.